November 3, 2003

review/wankers

Posted by Arcane Gazebo at November 3, 2003 8:34 PM My Buffy DVDs arrived, and I finally got to see how episode 2x07 ("Lie to Me") ends. I'd been watching the series by downloading the episodes one-by-one, but the usual reliability of this method produced a corrupted file for this particular installment. I was foolishly undeterred by the refusal of three separate video players to play the file, and watched it with the fourth only to have it crash 30 minutes in, just when the "Look out Buffy!" audiovisual cues were ramping up. This was so frustrating that it motivated me to just order the damn DVDs. (This, of course, retroactively transforms my downloaded files into perfectly legal backup copies for personal use only.)

The reason I'm relaying all this is that I want to comment on this particular episode (though I am six years too late for that to be timely). The interesting thing about it is that it depicts a group of teenage wannabe vampire wankers, reminiscent of the Les Enfants Du Sang in the comic book Preacher. I wanted to see which preceded the other, so I checked my handy DVD insert and Preacher collection. Turns out they were roughly simultaneous: "Lie to Me" aired 11/3/97, while Le Enfants make their first appearance in Preacher #30, Oct. 97. A real jump-the-shark moment for the Anne Rice types, I guess. (I think Buffy did a much better job with this story than Preacher; the former gave the villain a lot more depth than the latter. Also, Josh points out that this is shortly after the turning point for Preacher, when it begins to suck.)
Tags: